Philip Bennett Power

“ The spring with its showers passed away, and the beautiful summer came, and Jacob Dobbin was able to sit at his cottage door, breathing in the pure country air, and admiring what was to him the loveliest object in nature—namely, one rich, swelling bud upon his moss-rose tree. ”

“ Compare James Courtenay's present troubles,—his torture of mind, his pain of body, his risk of losing his life, and the almost momentary enjoyment which he had in plundering his poor neighbour of his moss-rose,—and see how Satan cheats in his promises of enjoyment from sin.
Dear young reader! let not Satan persuade you that there is any profit in sin—momentary pleasure there may indeed be, but it is soon gone, and then come sorrow and distress. Sin is a sweet cup with bitter dregs, and he who drinks the little sweet that there is, must drink the dregs also. ”

“ They now, indeed, gave a service of love; and a service of love is as different from a service of mere duty as day is from night.
Wherever the young squire had most displayed his passionate temper, there he made a point of going, for the sake of speaking kindly, and undoing so far as he could the evil he had already done. He kept ever in mind what he had heard from Jacob Dobbin in his dream,—that there was not only a Saviour by whom [53] alone he could be saved from his sins, but also that there was a road on which it was necessary to walk; a road which ran through daily life ”

“ The good old labourer was afraid, with his rough hands, to touch the richly bound and gilt volume that was brought up from the library; he knew every page in his own well-thumbed old book, and in that he read, and from that he discoursed. The minister of the parish came now and again; but when he heard of what use old Leonard had been to the young squire, he said that [61] God could use the uneducated man as well as the one that was well-learned, and he rejoiced that by any instrumentality, however humble, God had in grace and mercy wrought upon the soul of this wayward boy. ”

“ Leonard had made the tea in the old black pot with the broken spout, and Jacob lay on his little settle, close up to the table.
"Father," said Jacob, "I saw the young squire ride by on his gray pony to-day, and just then my leg gave me a sore pinch, and I thought, How strange it is that there should be such a difference between folk; [10] he's almost always galloping about, and I'm almost always in bed."
"Poor folk," answered Jacob's father, "are not always so badly off as they suppose; little things make them happy, and little things often make great folk unhappy ”

“ Sometimes he rolled himself in the sheet, and thought that he was dressed in a funeral cloak attending Jacob Dobbin's funeral, and all the while knowing that he had caused his death. At times the poor patient would attempt to spring from his bed; and now he fancied that he was being whipped [39] with the thorny branches of rose trees; and now that he was being put in prison for stealing from a poor man's garden. At one time he thought all the tenants on the estate were hunting him off it with hounds, while he was fleeing from them on his gray pony as fast as her legs could carry her ”

“ Jacob had his trials, and you'll have yours; and perhaps yours are the hardest, so far as going to heaven is concerned; for the rich have a temptation in every acre of land and in every guinea they have. Our Lord says that ''tis hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"
For many days James Courtenay thus pondered and prayed, with Aggie as his chief companion and instructor, and at length he was able to leave his room. But he was a different James Courtenay from the [51] one who had entered that room some months before. The young squire was still pale and thin ”

“ James Courtenay's state was speedily made known to his father, and in a [38] few minutes, from old Aggie's conversation with him, the groom was on his way to a neighbouring town to hasten the family physician. The latter soon arrived, and, after a few minutes with James Courtenay, pronounced him to be in brain fever—the end of which, of course, no man could foresee.
And a fearful fever indeed it was. Day after day passed in wild delirium. The burden of all the poor sufferer's cries and thoughts was, that he was a murderer. ”

“ At length the young squire lay down upon his bed, trembling as if he had the ague, and realizing how true are the words, that "our sin will find us out," and that "the way of transgressors is hard."
At last, to his great relief, the handle of his door was turned, and old Aggie made her appearance.
"O Aggie, Aggie," cried James Courtenay, "come here. I'm fit to die, with the horrid thoughts I have, and with the dreadful things I see. Jim Meyers said I murdered Jacob [37] Dobbin ”

“ While thus engaged one day, the young squire came running along, and his eye fell upon Jacob's rose. "Hallo," cried he with delight—"a moss-rose! Ha, ha!—the gardener said we had not even one blown in our garden; but here's a rare beauty!" and in a moment James Courtenay had bounded over the little garden gate, and stood beside the rose bush. In another instant his knife was out of his pocket, and his hand was approaching the tree.
"Stop, stop!" cried Jacob Dobbin; [15] "pray don't cut it,—'tis our only rose ”

“ Poor old Leonard Dobbin was just as much frightened as Jim Meyers and his father had been, at the summons to attend the squire. He had a [31] clear conscience, however; he felt that he had not wronged the squire in anything; and so, washing himself and putting on his best Sunday clothes, he made his way to the Hall as quickly as he could.
"Leonard Dobbin," said the squire, "I charge you, upon pain of my worst displeasure, to tell me all you know about this story of your late son's moss-rose tree. You need not be afraid to tell me all ”

“ When a Christian is injured, and avenges not himself; when he is evil spoken of, and answers not again; when he is provoked, yet continues long-suffering: then the spirits, good and bad, witness these things, and they must glorify the grace of God. ”

“ All this the young squire would never have listened to from any one else; but old Aggie had reared him, and whenever he was laid by with any illness, or was in any particular trouble, she was the one to whom he always [9] fled. "God sometimes teaches people very bitter lessons," said old Aggie one day, when James Courtenay had been speaking contemptuously to one of the servants ”